Russia’s war in Ukraine has become a grinding war of attrition. Every month, tens of thousands of Russian soldiers are killed or wounded on the front lines. But Vladimir Putin has so far resisted a full-scale mass mobilization that would force large numbers of ordinary Russians into uniform — a move that could prove politically costly at home.
So Russia has turned to Africa for manpower.
In recent months, reports have emerged of African nationals being recruited to fight for Russia in Ukraine. Some go knowingly. But many others appear to have been lured under false pretenses, promised jobs in Russia as truck drivers or cooks — only to find themselves trapped in military training camps and then sent to the front lines.
My guest today, Guyo Chepe Turi, has been investigating how this recruitment pipeline works. He is a researcher with Institute for Security Studies in Nairobi, Kenya. In a recent article, he examined how recruitment networks are targeting young Africans, including in Kenya, and sending them to the frontlines as canon fodder.
Ukraine estimates that there are nearly 3,000 fighters from at least 36 African countries now involved in Russia’s war and one in eight prisoners of war are Africans. The countries affected are diverse — Kenya, Ghana, Egypt, Morocco, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, and others. The true number may be higher, because many of these cases go undocumented.
We kick off discussing how, exactly, the recruitment works, including the deceptive practices and coercion used to trap Africans in Russia. We then discuss how governments in the region, including Kenya, are responding and what this all says about the volatile geopolitical fallout of high youth unemployment in Africa.
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